


Find Your Way

by gr8_rach



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, I Live for the Aesthetic, University Professor AU, but just in flashbacks, episode 10 declaration RESOLVED (hopefully), so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-07 15:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12844182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gr8_rach/pseuds/gr8_rach
Summary: It turns out 12 years away from Lakewood, a complicated graduate degree, and a prestigious teaching position in a quaint, snowy mountain town can do almost anything—except undo the hurt of a five-second rejection.But honestly? That's just the story of Audrey's life.Or; twelve years after canon events, Audrey accidentally accepts a teaching position at the university where Emma works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯





	1. Chapter 1

Audrey pulled the hood of her coat up closer around her neck as she crossed the road, her boots crunching through the snow. The sound of it was loud against the silent morning, the morning light gray and glowing against the thick blanket of white that covered everything—cars, bikes, trees, pavement. The shutters in the windows along the street were shut tight, making it feel like even the buildings were still sleeping under the cover of the early morning snow. The empty sidewalks and vacant parking lots were proof of this fact; Everybody slept, apparently, at such a ridiculous, chilly hour. 

Everybody except Audrey. It was her first day on the new job, if any of her students decided to brave the snow to attend class. Honestly, the cold was the hardest part, and that might fade with the sun’s full emergence.

She’d been given an office with a huge window facing the main quad. Just the other day, she’d spent the afternoon setting books on the shelves, finding a home for her favorite coffee mug, setting out pictures of Noah, Brooke, and her parents. Making sure the empty space where….well, that space stayed empty anyway. With her office set up, Audrey wanted to come in early this morning to get herself ready to teach, go over her materials, the syllabus, make sure she didn’t end up late because of an unexpected detour. 

Her PhD was in Clinical Psychology, and the department had signed her up to teach the standard courses dealing with the subject: _Psych 101: Intro_ , and _Psych 202: History_. Professors who didn’t have tenure typically taught those courses in their first few years on staff. However, her last course was _Psych 356: Theoretical_. The professor who’d been teaching it thus far had fallen ill and been unable to continue teaching; his incapacitation had been the real reason she’d gotten this job. 

Who else but a small-time, desperate university would have taken her with the kind of track record she had, honestly? “Tried-for-murder” didn’t look good on anyone’s background check, even if the ultimate verdict had been an acquittal. Coupled with her history of departmental reprimands from the university she’d graduated from and the termination of her employment from the last university she’d taught for...well, it was lucky that her skills somehow managed to fit into the spot where the department heads here needed her. 

Her earnest promise to stay in line, keep her head down couldn’t have hurt, either. 

As she neared the building, the custodian was just unlocking the door, bundled in his heavy coveralls and winter coat. When she walked forward to pull the door open, he looked her up and down, carefully, before remarking: 

“You’re the new hire, aren’t you?” 

Audrey nodded, “Is it obvious?” 

He laughed, his breath a thick cloud in front of his face. “None of the other professors show up at 6:30 am for anything, least of all in this weather.” 

She winced as she pulled the door open, and he laughed even harder. 

“Don’t worry, new girl—you’ll find your way.” 

For a flash, the phrase felt unbelievably tender, like it could have been whispered into her ear by someone she loved, and Audrey swallowed against the thick lump rising in her throat. The door swung shut as she mumbled her thanks. 

She’d been here before, so she had no trouble finding her way to her office, even in the dim hallway—it was mostly lit by natural light, which was relatively scarce at such an early hour. But Audrey was no stranger to walking in the dark. In most instances, she preferred it nowadays. 

It made her feel strong to be comfortable without lights on, like she’d finally outrun the past. Of course that wasn’t the case, and petty victories against shadows and silhouettes could never account to anything significant in the face of the real monsters inside of her. 

Pausing for a moment in front of the huge window just down the hall from her office, Audrey took a moment to look over the campus. The student crews were out, shoveling snow even as more snow fell on top of them, but otherwise, the campus slept. 

But just there—the building across the quad—there was a light on. It was too far away for Audrey to see anything distinct in the window, but a figure sat at a desk surrounded by books and….flowers? As Audrey looked closer she realized that the poor person was actually fast asleep at their desk, head pillowed on top of a rather heavy-looking volume. 

Audrey lingered for a moment, taking comfort in the fact that there was another person in the city who had woken as early as she had, that they had braved the snow and cold and dark just as she had. She reached up to brush her fingers along the chilly glass before moving on, reaching into her pocket for the keys to unlock her office. 

She flicked her light on and stood in the doorway for a moment, feeling a rush of affection for this tiny space. It was hers. And perhaps, it could mean a new beginning, a better beginning. Finally. 

Going over her notes and arranging her syllabi was simple enough, and she knew it would be, really. This left her an hour to think, to turn around in her chair and watch the light in the office across the way. She opened up her schedule on her laptop to finalize office hour times, sneaking glances as the figure finally shook themselves awake and moved the book off the desk, moving around slowly to gather things and put them in a bag before reaching up behind them to pull—

Oh no. Audrey quickly averted her eyes as the figure, a woman she can tell now, pulled a rubber band out of her hair and sent a long mess of blonde hair tumbling down around her shoulders. Almost frantically, Audrey looked around for a set of blinds to pull, disgruntled to find there were none. That seemed like something important. 

————————

Her first class, Psych 101, ran as smoothly as she could have expected for a first day. There were a million freshman who only barely paid attention, and at the end a line of bored kids formed, all asking for the code to add the section so they could fill the general requirement and move on with their majors. 

She waved them all away—add codes would be useless until next session, when the enrollment numbers were a little more steady. She’d give them out then, she announced, firmly. More than a few of them rolled their eyes at her, but she just fixed them with her firm glare. The murder stare. 

If she gained a quick reputation for being tough, good. It would be less whining to deal with, less questions about dates and leniencies. More time to put her head down and make a clean life for herself. 

She settled into her office and pulled out the lunch she’d made for herself the night before. The sandwich was a little squished, but nothing that would affect the taste. The pickles still crunched, the tomato was sweet, and the cheese tasted so fresh? Small towns. Audrey’s hometown wasn’t big, by any means, but it wasn’t this small. Not small enough to reap any rewards in the produce department. Just small enough to let gossip spread and mutate into something terrible. 

Small enough to save a place for a local pariah after a series of terrible events. 

But self-pity was for people who didn’t deserve their fate. And Audrey definitely did. It did no good to allow every harmless thought to dissolve into a sad quasi-psychological assessment of her high school years. The fact that she was alone now was her own fault and no one else’s. 

A knock on the frame of her open door startled her out of her thoughts and she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth to remove any lingering traces of mustard or pickles. 

“Yes! Hello!” She said, pulling her feet down off her desk and scrambling to stand. 

“Oh, no need to get up, I’m just popping in to say hello quickly since it’s your first day!” The woman at the door was dressed smart, in a pantsuit with a coordinating blouse, her hair done up neatly. Audrey squinted for a moment, willing her brain to catch up. 

“That’s nice of you, I do appreciate it.” Audrey said, and then it clicked. The department head! She’d done a video interview with her for the final placement of the job. 

“Oh, we’re a pretty tight-knit university here, we all try to be friendly with each other!” The woman smiled brightly, looking away from Audrey for the first time to study the shelves of books and photos stuck to the corkboard. “It’s nice that you’ve already made yourself at home here. We want you to love it here!” 

Audrey smiled, a little tight. This level of cheerful was hard for her to swallow, a little. It reminded her of home and Brooke and….Audrey suppressed a sigh and focused on answering her boss.

“I don’t need much to settle in; I honestly don’t think that feeling at home here will be a problem. The mountains and trees and snow make everything feel really cozy.” 

“Yes, the area here is quaint—and the people are just as lovely! Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your meal. If you need anything at all, let me know!” 

“I definitely will.” Audrey said, nodding her head in acknowledgement and resisting the urge to do something stupid, like salute her. 

“Thanks, Professor Jensen!” She said, trailing her fingers along the doorframe as she walked away. The title sounded strange to Audrey’s ears, and she frowned to herself for a moment. Teenagers had been using the term to catch her attention all morning, but it still was….foreign to hear it out of a fellow adult’s mouth. Especially somebody so decidedly adultier than Audrey felt. 

“Oh! I completely forgot to mention—” Audrey jerked her head back to the doorway as her boss re-made an appearance. “We do a—silly really—sort of party for all the professors to get together and mingle? It’s this Friday night, 7 in the main area inside the Lit building, just there—” And she gestured to the building across the street that Audrey had been gazing at all morning. 

“Sounds good.” Audrey said, nodding again. 

“Thanks, Jensen!” Her boss said, leaving again. 

Well. An awkward, undergrad-style mixer for professors? Who could say no to that! Audrey rolled her eyes, at first just in her head, but then for real when she realized that there was no one there to chide her for it. 

Would she go? Probably. Awkward mixers had a way of defining her destiny for her, and she wasn’t about to take a backseat to this one and let it meddle on its own. Her traitorous brain pulled up an image without her permission, of a pool, and Audrey with a camera. Gah—the camera. Why did she carry that thing around all the time back then??

She shook her head, strands of her dark hair falling into her face, but the effect was as intended—it jarred her out of the past and into the present. The present where she had another class before she could head home again. With a sigh, she ran her fingers through her hair to push it back into place and gathered up the necessary papers, pulling her bag over her shoulder. One last time, her eyes involuntarily flickered to the window, pulled towards that light in the other building. 

With a brisk, scolding noise under her breath she pulled her eyes away and flicked the light in her office off, shutting and locking the door behind her. 

This was a new place. There was no sense tainting it with images of the past. 

——————————————

“The reading list seems simple, but I promise you, it won’t be light reading—those are two books full of a precise, detailed ideological record of the History of Psychology. And the third is a children’s chapter book on philosophy, for fun.” 

There was a smattering of polite laughter at that, and Audrey grinned to herself. She’d thought about the best way to dispel tension over the reading list, and as it happened, her method had been effective. The students seemed much more at ease. 

“Professor?” A hand came up near the front, and Audrey nodded, gesturing vaguely that way. The student nodded and looked around her before continuing. “It’s just that—these books seem very….philosophy. Not psychology.” 

A murmur of apparent agreement rippled through the rows of students in chairs. 

“Does anyone in here know how long Psychology has been an officially studied discipline?” 

No hands went up. Audrey inclined her head, raising an eyebrow at the crowd of students. 

“No one? I’m disappointed.” She pushed away from the podium in the corner of the room, where she’d been reading from the syllabus as she answered questions. There were seven or so minutes of class left, and this would be a good way to spend them. 

“Psychology is terribly young—if we only studied the history of its specific practice and inquiry, we’d be here for about two class periods. Psychology, however, takes its roots in the same place that most of the other scientific disciplines—with Philosophy. And Philosophy is the oldest discipline in the world. There’s a lot to cover there.” 

A hand went up. “Professor Jensen? What’s the point of studying philosophy, though? Couldn’t we do just as well taking a really deep look at the study of psychology?” 

Audrey frowned, pausing in her pacing to lean with her hands braced against the unoccupied first row of chairs. “How many of you have ever been in a relationship?” 

About half of them raised their hands, and she chuckled. 

“Is the actual romantic relationship the most important part of the story?” 

A few students laughed in lieu of an answer; the rest seemed confused. 

“Well, listen—when you ask a couple about to be married about their relationship, do you ask how they started dating? You ask ‘ _how did you meet?_ ’ and then they tell you some sappy story about a coffee shop where they sat across from each other and made gross lovey eyes for weeks before one finally asked the other out. 

“Or you hear about how they’d been best friends their entire life until suddenly, one day things rolled over the edge and became romantic! 

“Or, even better—ask someone about an unrequited love. Those stories are even longer. If the only important part of romance was the romantic relationship itself, would they have anything to say to you? No. But they always do.” 

Audrey’s breathing was a bit out of hand, and she was still leaned over the chairs, trying to stare into the eyes of every person in the hall. The students were silent, rapt, even. 

“You see, the story always starts before you expect it. The most obvious beginning of the thing is not always the true beginning. And it’s always important to find the true beginning of something. Especially if you’re looking for a flaw in it.” 

“Are we looking for flaws in Psychology, Professor?” 

Audrey grinned again, her teeth showing this time. “Oh, absolutely.” 

The bell rang then, and she straightened, gesturing towards the door. “I’ll see you all next time—don’t forget to crack those books open!” 

—————

She sat alone in her apartment later, thinking about how sometimes, the most important parts of a relationship weren’t even the parts that happen. MIssed moments, times when almost wasn’t quite enough. When words that should have been said were left unspoken. 

She got up to go to bed finally, slowing making her way around the small house, turning off the lamp on in the living room, checking the lock on the front door, rinsing out her cup and setting it in the bottom of the empty sink. A few of the chairs around the kitchen table needed to be straightened, and the blinds above the table were open, so she closed them.

She flicked on the dim light in her bathroom, avoiding the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth and washed her face. But right before she turned the light off, she caught her reflection in the mirror and paused for a moment. Generally, Audrey didn’t spend much time looking directly at herself in the mirror. As a younger girl, her cheeks were just a little bit rounded and they softened her entire face, much to her endless frustration. She spent so much time working to counteract the softness she portrayed—leather jackets, the harsh, short haircut, cruel quirks of her eyebrows and a hard set to her mouth—but it wasn’t until a few years ago that she started noticing that softness fade. Her jawline was sharper now, and her cheeks had shadows in the hollows where the years had weathered her. 

It was as if all Audrey’s time spent pushing people away and acting tough had sculpted her face into a more intimidating version of herself. Of course, she knew it wasn’t true. Twelve years was enough to change a person in a real, tangible way. But still. She wondered if...if Emma would even recognize her anymore. Audrey’s hair had grown a little longer since then, the ends grazing her jawline, the color a little softer now. She’d been wearing reading glasses for a few years now—though in this, Audrey knew she was not alone. Brooke had called her just the other day to complain about the stress of learning to put contacts in as an almost-thirty-year-old. 

Audrey smiled to herself as she thought of Brooke in her fancy studio apartment in New York City, stressing about inserting and removing her contacts every day. No doubt Stavo would roll his eyes every time, and Brooke would scoff and elbow him in the side. 

Flicking the light off, Audrey padded the few steps to her bedroom and pulled back the covers. The softness of the covers soothed her, inexplicably, limiting the time that she spent staring up at the ceiling or out the window every night. The past few nights she had only spent a few moments gazing at the soft snowfall outside before her eyes were slipping shut and she was drifting off to sleep. 

———————————————————

The rest of the week passed in nearly the same manner. The snow made time feel sluggish, as if each moment were filtering through a sieve before it could pass. She trudged through the snow to her office, and then to class, and then to her office again, and home again. Alone with her cup of water or milk or tea, she contemplated getting a pet. A cat would be low-maintenance while she was gone at school, but a dog would probably provide better companionship and warmth through the cold winter nights. 

Before she knew it, Friday morning had arrived and she stood in front of her full-length mirror turning from side to side. Honestly, the hardest part of academia for Audrey was the mandatory softening of her wardrobe. It got easier, definitely, but trading in leather jackets for long, wool cardigans still made her feel a little naked. Starched collars always felt like they were slowly choking her to death. She refused to give up her boots—even if they were wildly softened versions of the boots she used to wear in high school. Zipping up boots felt comforting, like strapping a sword to her back or pulling a shield over her arm. 

At least it was still winter. She could pull on as many layers as she needed to feel safe. In summer….she was lost. Exposed. Nothing to hide behind. 

After a few moments of scoffing over her cliched professor clothes, she threw up her hands. Why was she worrying about how she looked for a glorified back-to-school dance for lame teachers? She wasn’t looking to impress anyone, just to keep her job. That had more to do with her research and teaching reviews than it did what she was wearing to socials. 

The day passed slowly; it felt like it had been a week instead of a few hours by the time she was setting her shoulder bag down next to the podium and pulling her books out for History of Psych. 

The students huddled together in groups, whispering over their quizzes, fingers itching to pull their books open. A few of the students were rubbing their foreheads with tense fingers, and Audrey chuckled. No doubt, students were unaccustomed to expending so much mental energy for a simple, beginning of class quiz. 

As she collected the quizzes, a few hands went up. 

“Professor! Why are you quizzes so hard?” 

“Are they all like that?” 

“I didn’t even do the reading, how much is that quiz going to count?” 

Audrey rolled her eyes, shuffling the quizzes into place and tucking them into her bag for grading later. “It’s all in the syllabus. I never told you the quizzes would be easy, and they’re worth a substantial amount of your final grade.” 

A chorus of groans sounded. 

Audrey fought the urge to roll her eyes again. “How many of you are actually interested in learning about the field you’re studying?” 

Almost all of the hands went up. Almost. The few that remained down made Audrey chuckle and nod her head. “I appreciate the honesty from you few, I guess.” 

The students laughed. 

“But you should probably drop. I’m not interested in sitting here for an hour and a half twice a week so that you guys can eat the information I speak and then crap out correct test answers. My guess is that most of you have never learned how to think.” 

That sentence was greeted immediately by an almost uniform dirty look from the students. Audrey threw up her hands. 

“Oh, don’t worry! For most of you, it’s not even your fault. Your past educators never bothered to help you seriously develop that ability. But I’m going to. We’re going to read stuff, and we’ll talk about it, and I’ll ask you to think about it alone, and pull important pieces out, and overarching themes and important connections.” 

Silence. 

“Do you even understand the consequences of not thinking carefully? My guess is that you don’t, or you can’t. This is how people end up in relationships that end in divorce. This is how people end up in a life that they will ultimately find unsatisfying. This is how idiots over in the English department write entire papers using some stupid thing Freud once said.” 

The class tentatively laughed there, but Audrey shook her head. 

“It’s how somebody ends up in therapy with a therapist who makes them feel like they can’t do anything to control their life. See, what your professors haven’t made sure you understand up to this point is that the lives of real people are in your hands. You can’t afford the luxury of thinking superficially.” 

Audrey half expected someone to raise their hand and comment, but no one did. 

“If you’re not ready for that, then probably this is the wrong place for you.” 

Again, silence. Audrey nodded, slapped her hands on the podium for emphasis, and began the day’s lecture. For the most part, the students were so engrossed, listening carefully and trying to absorb as much information as possible. It allowed Audrey to work herself into the zone, find her flow and lose herself in the lecture. When the alarm on her phone (to ensure she didn’t lecture over, because grad-school Audrey had done that many times) rang, she froze in place, looked up at the wide-eyed faces in front of her. Her mouth snapped shut and she dismissed them with a flustered apology. 

Back to her office then, where she graded quizzes and tried not to think about the party that night. A few times she looked out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the woman across the way, but the office was empty. Maybe she would be at the party. This new job and home was supposed to be about finding new friends and moving on, and a new friend, even one who looked like—well. A new friend would be a good thing. 

When she finally put away her work she was only a small portion of the way finished but entirely done pretending that she was making any real progress. She readjusted the heavy cardigan over her starched blouse and smoothed down her hair, peering in the black screen of her computer monitor. The smoothing made her look respectable, but after a long moment trying to avoid eye contact with her reflection, Audrey ruffled it back out of place and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Who cared if she was respectable—what she really needed was to feel like herself. Or as close to herself as she could manage. 

Pushing the doors open let in a gust of hot air, instantly flushing her cold cheeks and blowing her hair out of her face. Audrey grimaced, knowing that it probably looked like the terrible, b-list remake of a hair commercial. Though no one looked up from their conversations, she couldn’t stop herself from running a hand through her hair, tugging at the shaved bits at her hairline in the back. Readjusting her glasses and breathing deep, she walked into the dim-lit foyer. 

The snack table she drifted towards was sparse, picked over university-catered cookies and barely-cold milk. Ugh, milk. Who wanted the taste of milk in their mouth to meet their new coworkers? Still, she dutifully picked up a napkin and a cookie and a half-glass of milk, set off to try and convince herself to socialize. 

In her peripheral vision Audrey could see a flash of blonde hair, flicking light from the ceiling into every corner of the room. Ah, what was it she’d said? Make new friends? No time like the present. 

She stubbornly refused to allow herself to think about the real reason she began to walk steadily in the direction of that blonde hair.

A cookie in her hand would prevent her from being able to tap this woman on the shoulder, so she crammed it into her mouth in as few bites as she could manage. Predictably, that proved to be a bad decision, and she was left choking on brittle crumbs, desperately pouring milk down her throat to clear it out. The woman, much closer than Audrey had anticipated when she’d begun to wolf her cookie down, flinched as Audrey coughed, reaching an idle hand out to paw at the air near the woman’s shoulder. She missed, but the woman brought a startled, trembling hand up to press against her chest before she turned towards Audrey. 

Audrey choked on the milk _and_ the cookie in her mouth, because she had to be dreaming or dead, right? That was _not_ , it couldn’t be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece was supposed to be my personal magnum opus but then I got intimidated by how weighty it is and left it sitting for 5ever. I'm struggling with another fandom I'd like to write for, so here, have the beginning of this overambitious monster. 
> 
> And please hug me for being stupid enough to look for validation in a tiny, dead fandom. I, like Audrey Jensen, need some love. And inspiration to finish SOMething I started. 
> 
> It's vaguely inspired by the premise and aesthetic of a fanfiction I read many years ago in a different fandom. I'd link it here but I honestly don't want anyone to know what fandom it's from.....I'm sorry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: It's Emma.

_It is_ , Audrey thought in a daze. _It’s Emma_. Panicked, she dropped the cup of milk she’d been holding, flinching as the last bit of milk in it sloshed over the toes of her boots. Great. 

Emma gasped, looking down and throwing her hands up. She stumbled backwards to try and escape the milk and accidentally bumped into another faculty member behind her. 

“I’m so sorry,” Emma said, her hands coming up to stabilize the man’s shoulders. “I wasn’t looking, I didn’t see you there.” Audrey had intended to lean down and clean up the milk spill with her cookie napkin, but she froze at the sound of Emma’s voice. 

It was like running your fingers through a plush fur blanket; it was golden and syrupy smooth, gentle even when she yelled. The sound of it made Audrey want to trail her fingers down the pale curve of Emma’s neck, bury her fingers in the downy softness of Emma’s hair. Hearing it again felt like coming home, like jumping into a pool to find that the water was much warmer than she’d expected. It wasn’t a far jump to imagine the warm amber of Emma’s eyes crinkling as she spoke. 

Except when Emma turned back to Audrey, it was like a bucket of ice water dumped over her head. The illusion dissipated like smoke, and yes, there was Emma looking at Audrey with eyes as cold as they had ever been. Audrey cursed herself internally. So much for making friends at the faculty mixer. 

She dropped down to wipe up the milk mess before straightening, finding herself awkwardly face-to-face with Emma. Though Emma’s eyes were hard, Audrey allowed herself a moment to drink in the sight of her. Time had changed Emma in noticeable ways, but there was no mistaking her for anyone else. There were little crow's feet beginning to form around Emma’s eyes, and they filled Audrey with a sort of bittersweet wave. Her hair was still the same tawny, buttery color, but it was quite a bit shorter than the last time Audrey had seen her, curving elegantly around the tops of her shoulders. It made her look very grown-up. Age had sharpened Emma’s face just like it had with Audrey’s, but the sharpness was accentuated by the dark makeup around her eyes, the deep color painted onto her lips. 

Emma looked powerful, like a formidable force of female fury. After a stunned moment, Audrey realized she’d been standing and just staring at Emma, and she recoiled. Her free hand fluttered up to tangle in her hair, and she chanced a look to Emma’s face again. 

“Hi?” Audrey cringed at the thin tone of her voice, and then again when Emma made a face as well. 

“A-Audrey. What...what are you doing here?” Emma pursed her lips and the action made her cheekbones look even sharper, the hollows in her cheeks even darker. 

“I actually just. I’m a professor, in the Psychology department. I started this week.” Audrey’s hand felt sweaty clenched around the cheap plastic of her cup, the other trembling slightly where it was caught in her hair again. 

“How….nice.” Emma smiled, but it was fake, Audrey knew it, knew her too well to fall for that cheap imitation of enthusiasm. From behind Emma, someone called and Emma turned, waved and then turned back to Audrey. “I probably should go.” 

“I—yeah, um.” Audrey reached a hand up to wave, unconsciously. Awkwardly.

But Emma had already turned and disappeared in the crowd with a swish of her heavy skirt. 

From there it was quick work to discard her cup and napkin, to shrug off her department head, to feign some excuse and burst out of the doors just 15 minutes from the time that she’d entered, tentatively hopeful. Naive. 

Audrey never learned, she never stopped letting herself fall into this cycle of disappointment. 

_Maybe it’s not my super sketchy pen pal murdering all of my friends?_ Audrey had known better, even as it happened. 

_Just because Emma made all these popular friends doesn’t mean she’s going to ditch me completely._ Foolishly, Audrey had held onto that one much too long. 

_Emma will forgive me._ That was one Audrey still held onto sometimes when she laid awake in bed at night. Until Emma shattered it five minutes ago with her severe new haircut and razor-sharp winged eyeliner. Not even Audrey’s boots could protect her heart from this, from the tangibility of this rejection. 

She stood outside in the cold, with snowflakes falling gently around her. One stuck to her eyelashes, blurring her vision briefly before she wiped it away. The quiet was deafening, broken only by the harsh sound of her heaving breaths. Briefly, she closed her eyes against the chill, and then opened them again and looked up, blinking away the hot anguish rising in her chest. This sleepy town suddenly seemed unbearable to Audrey, it seemed too big, the sky sprawling above her with too many stars. The weight of the night was too heavy on her heart. 

Behind her, the doors burst open again with a jarring clash. Audrey contemplated ignoring it, remaining still. And then a voice behind her. 

“Audrey—I, I’m sorry. You startled me. I wasn’t expecting to see you here at all, much less….right behind me. There was no reason for me to be so horrible, though.” 

Something in Audrey’s chest clenched, halting her breath. The sound of her name on Emma’s tongue was...heavy.

“We were friends once, after all.” 

The thing twisted, squeezing the air out of her lungs completely. A lump rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. To be sure that the words would come out, Audrey had to clear her throat twice before replying. 

“It’s fine, honestly. Whatever. You don’t have to apologize.” Her jaw clenched. She didn’t turn. 

There was a small scuffle that sounded like Emma kicking her boots in the snow, or possibly turning to leave. Audrey couldn’t find it in her to care which, really. 

“Did.” Emma sounded flustered, her voice a little harsher on the word than typical. “Did you know I was here when you took the position?” 

Audrey whipped around, trying and failing to pivot on one foot gracefully. The movement seemed, instead, like an awkward sort of pounce. She slipped on the landing, jolting forward and almost falling; luckily, she saved herself at the very last second with flailing arms. 

It felt almost like being a teenager again, when she couldn’t manage to do _anything_ correctly in Emma’s presence. 

Emma hadn’t moved, staring at Audrey with one eyebrow cocked. The expression was familiar enough from their younger days, but the thick eyeliner and deep eyeshadow gave it a frightening air. Interestingly, it seemed that Emma Pretty-Princess Duval had managed to make herself into a deeply intimidating presence in the ten or so years since Audrey had seen her last. That realization would have embarrassing connotations later, but for now, it had Audrey scrambling to string words together defensively. 

“I—Of course not! What, you thought that I’d _hunt_ you down or something? I would never—” Audrey paused, huffing to try and catch her breath and calm down a little. “Why would I follow you? You don’t think I want….a little peace and quiet?” 

Emma looked stunned for a moment, and then she nodded seriously. “It’s true, this is literally the perfect place for a little peace and quiet.” 

Audrey raised her eyebrows, suppressing the urge to snort. That was a tic reserved for teenaged Audrey, not grown-up-with-a-real-adult-job Audrey. She opened her mouth and then closed it. For a moment she’d been ready to say something like, _no kidding, I googled “best places for peace and quiet” and this town was the first result, go figure._ And then Audrey remembered herself. Things weren’t like that between her and Emma anymore. They hadn’t been for a while, for years, in fact. 

“I just wanted…” Audrey let that sentence trail off, turning her head towards the mountains in the distance, idly studying the way that the glowing stars kissed the tops of the snowy peaks. The end of that thought seemed too personal to share, suddenly. “I don’t know what I wanted.” 

She expected Emma to laugh, or even to scoff at that. But she didn’t, just nodded like she understood. “This is a very good university. A good opportunity for career growth.” 

The forced niceness made Audrey close her eyes and run a hand through her hair again. “Look, Emma. You don’t have to worry. I’m going to do my best to stay out of your way. You won’t even know I’m here.” 

The expression on Emma’s face was foreign to Audrey. Her eyebrows were drawn up, a bit sad, but her mouth was set tight, a claret smear of disapproval. Audrey thought she’d seen Emma’s face contorted every which way: angry, disappointed, sad, pleased. But she’d never seen this. 

“Fine,” Emma said, with a horrifying degree of finality that Audrey recognized instantly. 

_‘I blame you,’_ _and then a hard shove up against the lockers behind her._

How was it possible for so much time to have passed without anything changing? Audrey was doomed to forever be stuck in this cycle with Emma. Expectation, disappointment. 

There was nothing left to be said, so Audrey turned, wrapped her cardigan around her torso with shaking hands, and stamped off through the snow to find her car. 

That night, she lay in bed bundled in her downy duvet, arms thrown around a stray pillow. Her brow furrowed, alternating between eyes squeezed shut tight and unfocused staring at the window in her ceiling. If it weren’t so cold she would go out, sit on the slope of the roof and search for constellations. In bad times, Audrey found herself looking up and finding Orion’s belt, the three stars winking against the black. When they were children, when Audrey’s mom was sick, Emma had leaned close in the night and whispered to Audrey: 

_He’s a hunter, you know? The easiest constellation to find. When you need something to ground you, look up. He’s on your side. He’ll fight for you. When I can’t, he will._

The memory made her heart squeeze painfully now, and she rolled over and burrowed into her covers. Unfortunately, even the overwhelming fluffy weight of her bed wasn’t enough to put her to sleep. 

Sometime in the early hours of the morning she fell into a light doze, but it was plagued by horrible nightmares—made worse by the fact that they were _memories_ , not nightmares. 

Blood and the glint of light off the shiny surface of a knife. Emma, covered in her own blood, in someone else’s blood, in dirt and sludge, trembling and calling her name. Emma, steadily losing the ability to look Audrey in the eye. And the massive, explosive fight that had ended in silence. Just….silence. It was the silence that finally jolted Audrey awake. 

She lay in bed, breathing heavy, unwilling victim to the memories she had tried not to think about for years now. After the fight, Audrey had left. Emma didn’t want her and her father had been dying to send her off to that Catholic boarding school, even just for half a year. It had been hell, but not as hellish as staying to watch Emma hate her would have been. She’d been stupid to think that Emma had forgiven her for...for everything she’d done. 

As the light started to creep into the edges of the blinds in her loft, Audrey sighed, swung herself out of bed and made her way across the floor to draw herself a bath. She let the tap flow over her fingers until it reached the right temperature and then reached down to plug it up, padding off to make herself some coffee in the kitchen downstairs.

When Audrey had come house hunting the spring before, she’d fallen in love with this one instantly. It wasn’t much, more of a sort of brownstone than an actual house, but it felt like home. Peculiarly, the floorplan was narrow and stacked, with a set of thin, spindling stairs in the middle of the house. The kitchen and living room were on the bottom floor, with a cozy brick fireplace in one corner and charming wood flooring in the kitchen. On the second floor were an office and a bathroom, on either side of the stairs. Audrey kept an extra toothbrush for herself in that cabinet, for the days when she didn’t feel much like climbing two flights of stairs to brush her teeth after breakfast. The top floor was her bedroom, a small loft with sloping ceilings and just enough space for her bed and a small side table, and then her bathroom. There was a clawfoot porcelain tub in there, a small stand-up shower, and a little sink. Outdated wallpaper clung to the walls, flowery and silly, but it seemed like a place with character, a place that had surely seen love and belonging. 

After a long time alone, Audrey had jumped at the chance to feel like she belonged somewhere. 

Audrey puttered around her small kitchen, setting the coffee maker and then hiking back up the staircase to check on the bath. It was filled, so she slipped in and let herself relax, tried to clear her mind. 

When the water went cold, she stepped out, wrapped herself in a fluffy towel, and got dressed before heading downstairs for coffee. Halfway down the stairs she cursed and ran back up for socks. The hardwood on the stairs was cold against her toes, but socks (despite the slip hazard) kept them a little warmer.

The light filtered into the kitchen through the small window above the sink where Audrey hadn’t bothered with curtains or blinds. Just through to the dining room under the stairs there were big windows along the back of the house, overlooking the small patch of grass leading out to the woods. Audrey didn’t actually know what the backyard looked like not covered in snow, but she figured it was pleasant enough with it. Everything felt quiet and content here, in her own home with the weak sunrise shining on her face as she sipped her coffee. Her sleepless night had left her lazy and disinclined to expend energy on unnecessary tasks, like walking the few feet to her kitchen table to sit. Instead, she stood in the kitchen, the hardwood cold against her socked feet, coffee hot on her tongue. 

When her cup was empty, she put it in the sink and deflated against the cabinets, sighing hard enough to ruffle the shorter pieces of hair around her face. She’d avoided thinking about Emma all morning, distracted by the calming, busy details of her bath and coffee. 

She looked up at the ceiling hopelessly, running a hand through her damp hair. Despite what she’d told her students and thought to herself the week before, sometimes it _was_ the things that actually happened that mattered most in a relationship. 

Perhaps before now, she had harbored half-hopes that maybe someday she and Emma could be friends again. Perhaps up until now, she had harbored something even more delicate than a half-hope, the tiniest dream that maybe someday Emma might want to be more than friends. But it was something Audrey had only ever admitted to herself in the dark, quiet moments when she was alone. 

The ceiling suddenly seemed quite interesting to Audrey. She squinted against the rush of emotion threatening to overwhelm her. The last time she had cried was as a very small child, and she had no interest in reviving the habit now. As an extra protection, she folded her arms tight across her chest, hoping the sheer force of it would hold her heart together. 

And well, dreams died, and that was okay, right? She was just a child the last time she’d met Emma. Audrey huffed out a quivery breath, rubbing the sides of her arms and then turned to go back upstairs. Her hair was starting to dry, and if she didn’t put something in it there would be no stopping it from turning into a bird’s nest. 

It wasn’t okay, but she didn’t let herself think that thought as she worked some product into her hair and shook it first into her face and then out of it. Sometimes she missed her short hair from high school, but she couldn’t bear to have it cut too often. The first time she’d gone to her usual place for a haircut, the scissors snipped a little too close to her ear and she’d had a full-blown panic attack. It had been a long time after that before she’d had the courage to go back.

The beginnings of growing her hair out were hard. The back of her neck needed to be trimmed so often but she couldn’t bear to let anyone near her with a blade of any kind. One night she’d broken down into dry, frustrated sobs, fingers curled in the ridiculously long hairs at her nape. Emma had taken a new pair of scissors, oiled well, and handed Audrey a pair of headphones. It was twenty minutes of tense half-agony, but by the time Emma had finished, Audrey was still breathing evenly. 

The memory sent a twinge of pain through Audrey’s chest. It wasn’t long after that that Emma had closed up permanently, and these days, Audrey got her hair cut once a year. Her last had been right before she’d moved here, as short as she dared to go without needing any regular upkeep. The prospect of an utterly unknown person cutting her hair was more than mildly terrifying, despite the fact that Audrey mostly considered herself...functional, these days. 

Did Emma have nightmares, she wondered. Did she still wake up with her chest heaving in the middle of the night, the hair escaped from her braid sweaty and stuck to her neck? Did she reach for her phone before remembering that Audrey couldn’t be on the other side of it? Audrey’s hands stilled in her hair, her eyes caught unseeing in the mirror as she lost herself in thought again. It was going to be a long weekend if she couldn’t stop thinking about Emma like this. 

*********

Unfortunately, Audrey was right. It was a long weekend. Saturday afternoon she bundled up and trudged to the store, doing her best to avoid conversation with anyone as she peered at produce through foggy glasses. Saturday night she spent crouched on the couch with her feet tucked under her, flipping through channels with a mug of tea in her hand. She didn’t keep alcohol in the house, so she stared at the tv with acute, alert disdain. Sunday she spent half the day laying in bed, staring up at her window and trying to muster the will to open it and sit on the roof. Sunday afternoon she pulled her laptop out of her bag by the side of her bed and looked at the facebook pages for the various churches in town. Simple curiosity wasn’t enough to explain why she was clicking slowly through each page. Perhaps it was wistfulness, a yearning desire for some sort of childish familiarity. Sunday night she puttered around the kitchen in her thickest socks and a thick pair of thermal pajamas, cooking herself a thick, chunky soup. Despite her sedentary day, she was exhausted by the time she laid down, and she fell asleep quickly. 

Monday she tried her best to focus, to keep her thoughts from wandering during her lectures. Predictably, there weren’t any students brave enough to show up for her office hours during the second week, so she spent it spinning in her office chair, avoiding the emails unanswered in her inbox and the articles unedited in her files. Halfway through a spin, she caught a glimpse of the light flickering on in the office across the quad. When the blonde woman took a seat in the office chair, Audrey tumbled to the floor, scrambling up and moving her computer as far away from the window as she could.

Just her luck that Emma freaking Duval would be the woman in the office with a clear view of Audrey’s. 

After an hour of pretending to work, Audrey scooted her computer back over to the window and spent a few moments wistfully looking down, pretending that it was just to be sure that it _was_ Emma. 

Tuesday was better, more classes and less office hours. Her students grumbled over the quiz at the beginning again, but none of them asked how much of their grade it would be worth, at least. They might learn, yet. When she collected the quizzes, she opened up her lecture notes and moved to the chalkboard. 

“I’m not gonna ask who did the reading, because hopefully you all read and did great on your quizzes. Did anyone have any questions about the reading?” 

A few students looked around the room before raising their hands. 

“Professor, the first reading was so difficult to understand, and the second reading was from a children’s book?” 

“There wasn’t a question there. Did you not appreciate the help understanding?” 

“I—well, I guess, just—” 

Audrey waited, eyebrows raised. The student trailed off, turning pink. 

“ _Sophie’s World_ is a very common staple in introductory Philosophy classes. In European high schools. It’s a good way to lay the groundwork for you to understand the harder concepts in the other, more difficult readings.” Audrey turned to the chalkboard and began scribbling, mapping. 

“Now, Philosophy has typically been set up into a couple of different camps. Most of you have heard of Aristotle and Plato, right? We’re not gonna start there. Those names aren’t the ones that matter today, even though they’re the ones you recognize quickest. 

The two camps when Philosophy started were Materialism and Metaphysics.” 

The students stared at her, wide-eyed, expectantly. 

“Stay with me, okay? I promise this is important. I wouldn’t be here to waste your time. I hated that as a college student, and I’m not about it now. I won’t ever make you read or learn anything that I don’t think will help you understand something vitally important. Okay?” 

The stares softened a little, and students began pulling out notebooks and opening computers to take notes. 

“Philosophy is, and always has been, a question of what is _most_ real. What is the fundamental piece of human existence? The answers to all other questions can be answered if you’ve solved that first one, including the aims of Psychology, right? If you want to get to the bottom of human behavior, you have to understand what a human is.” 

A hand shot into the air. When Audrey nodded, the student said: “Professor Jensen, I thought Psychology had already answered that? Doesn’t human behavior originate in the brain?” 

Audrey threw her head back and laughed. “Straight to the point. Yes, that’s what Psychologists believe. We’re gonna explore how they got there and then you guys can decide if they were right.

“Materialists posit that the physical world is the fundamental of human existence. That only the things you can study with your eyes and touch with your hands are the things that matter. Material, yes?” She drew a circle around the word. 

“Metaphysics says that it’s the internal world that is most real. Your thoughts, your feelings, those are the things that make you a human.” 

Blank stares. Audrey huffed, put her hand on her hip before remembering that she had chalk in between her fingers. Awkwardly, she tried to brush the white dust off her pants without breaking the concentration in the room. Judging by the few snickers in the room, she had not succeeded. 

“Come on, _I think, therefore I am_? Anybody?” 

Students nodded excitedly. 

“That’s a metaphysical philosophy.” 

She glanced up at the clock—about 45 minutes left. “Can anybody tell me what the implications of each of these arguments are?” 

Nothing. Audrey fought the urge to roll her eyes. And then a student raised her hand timidly. 

“Yes?” 

“If our thoughts aren’t what’s most real...does that mean we aren’t...in control?” 

Audrey flailed her arms excitedly before remembering to respond. “Talk to me. Explain what you mean, please.” 

“Well, if the physical world is the _most_ real, then what’s accounting for our thoughts and feelings? Physical would mean our cells and neurons, right? Those aren’t the same as our thoughts because I don’t have any control over my neurons, I would think.” 

“Exactly! I’m not gonna answer that question right now, but the question of choice is what we’re gonna be focused on this semester. If the idea that you might not actually be the one making your choices doesn’t scare you...maybe you should consider it again.

“Everything we do is based on what we want, what we choose. All of our relationships, all of our pursuits, jobs, even the media we consume. If we’re not the one in charge of those things….what’s the point of trying to take charge of your life, or be a good person?” 

The first time Audrey had sat down in a Psychology class, she was terrified and disturbed by the amount of evidence that said her body was running the show, and not her. All those times she had frozen up, all those times she had been too afraid to stand up to the killers and protect her friends—those weren’t her fault. And that was sort of comforting. But then, the times where she was brave, where she mustered the courage, where she managed to save Emma, save herself, save Noah, and Brooke. She wasn’t really _brave_ , she was just a bundle of cells and neurons interacting and reacting successfully. It had become vitally important to find out, to really understand herself. She wanted, no, _needed_ to know. 

It turned out the answer had just made her feel doubly guilty for everything she’d done to Emma. The guilt, though, was hers to carry. As was the burden of reconciliation, however terrifying.

Audrey brushed her hair back and glanced at the clock again. “Okay, let’s talk about the reading—tell me about Epicurus...” 

As the students filed out of the classroom, Audrey tried to pretend that she didn’t notice the bewildered glances thrown her way. 

Her office seemed lonelier after being in such a big, warm room. Students and their idle buzz—they had annoyed her when she was a student herself, but now the youth, the innocence, the fervor was comforting. Silence was deafening. 

She did her best to avoid looking at the window, but she didn’t move her computer. The light out of the corner of her eye was a sort of soothing presence. Emma was working late, too. Perhaps they’d meet as they walked to their cars together. 

Audrey thought she’d die if that ever really happened, but it was nice to imagine a world where Emma wasn’t her enemy. 

********

A week or so later, there was a knock on her door halfway through Thursday afternoon. 

“Come in,” Audrey called, not bothering to look up from the article she’d been reading on her desktop. After a moment, she realized no one was going to come in, she tore her eyes away from the screen, frowning. “Come in? It’s not locked.” 

Nothing. 

She glanced back, instinctively, towards the window, though she wasn’t sure why, before she stood up and made her way to the door carefully. Unknown situations always sent her blood racing, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling painfully. 

With a deep breath, she pulled the heavy door open, yelping when she found herself face-to-face with the head of her department. 

“Oh, Audrey, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.” 

Audrey’s heart beat double-time, sweat beading at the small of her back; she could feel it sticking her shirt to her skin. Adrenaline left over from her panicked response pumped through her body, making it hard for her to stand still and look calm. 

“I just wanted to stop by and make sure you got that email I sent you, about the articles. For you research. And here?” Her boss held out a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. Audrey raised her eyebrows but accepted it with a nod regarding the emails in question. “And also, the faculty meeting this afternoon has been canceled.” 

Audrey had been about to ask where the sandwich came from, but that last comment derailed her completely. “Cancelled? Why?” 

A shrug. “Apparently they wanted a little more time before we discuss the new policy changes. I hear the University is still trying to tie up loose ends with the wording before they distribute it? Anyway, free Thursday! See you around, Professor Jensen!” 

She left Audrey sitting in her rolling chair clutching the thick-wrapped sandwich as the door clicked shut. With cautious fingers, Audrey unrolled the plastic wrap, catching the small square of paper stuffed between two of the layers of wrap. The piece of paper she set to the side, on her desk, as she finished and disposed of the plastic. 

The sandwich was a little smushed, but the smell was familiar, unmistakeable. Sure enough, she pulled the top piece of bread back to find cheese, pickles, mustard, a thin-sliced tomato and crisp piece of lettuce. The perfect sandwich, even better than she could have made herself. It just so happened to be her favorite. 

But. What?

Audrey stood, stumbling in her haste to get to the door. She threw it open, poked her head out.

“Hey—why did—” But the hallway was already empty. Audrey huffed a defeated breath and pulled her head back into the room. 

She shut the door, frowning at the sandwich in her hand. Carefully, she smelled it. It smelled normal? The bite she took was the smallest she could manage, and she chewed it gingerly, waiting for something strange or rotten.

But it was fine. Delicious, even. The next bite Audrey took was less tentative, and soon she was happily crunching on the lettuce and tomatoes, savoring the sharp bite of the pickles and the fresh taste of the cheese. When it was finished, she balled up the plastic wrap and threw it in the little trash can by her desk. 

She went back to her work, opening the email from her boss, reading the attached article and making a note on the side of her computer about it. Satisfied, she went back to the reading she’d been doing before the interruption, quickly falling back into the deep focus she’d maintained before. 

The paper on the side of her desk lay untouched for the rest of the afternoon, the spindly, loopy handwriting pressed against the wood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. I know, I said I would update a gazillion years ago (two days) but guys. My baby doesn't like to sleep, and not sleeping is not great for productivity. Plus Christmas. Anyway. I'm kind of just letting these characters guide me, too, which means that each update is a careful, experimental work. 
> 
> If you've got any questions about the philosophy PLEASE hit me up in the comments. I want to make it accessible to everyone reading this, so if there's something confusing, please talk to me so that I can help clarify it! My emphasis was philosophical psych, so....it's sometimes difficult for me to judge what's actually easy to understand and...what's not. 
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you for reading. It means a lot!


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